


Danger's In the Bending

by lookninjas



Category: BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Genre: Gen, Period-Typical Homophobia, Police Brutality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 15:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17727923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookninjas/pseuds/lookninjas
Summary: Sooner or later, everyone has to start making compromises for the things they love.  Flip's been doing it a long time.  Ron's only just begun.  Maybe it won't be that bad for him.  Then again, maybe it will.





	Danger's In the Bending

Somehow -- Ron’s not totally sure how, but then again his ears are still ringing and he’s still singed at the edges, throat raw from screaming Patrice’s name and all those bruises just starting to come up -- but somehow Flip forces his way into the Chief’s office while he’s “interviewing” those two idiots who beat the shit out of Ron. And Ron doesn’t know why, but he stands outside the door with Jimmy and just waits there, as Flip’s voice rises and rises, until he’s cut off abruptly mid-rant --

_I asked if you let him grab his badge you chucklefuck it’s a simple fucking --_

and thirty seconds later comes out steaming, jaw tight and hands in fists. 

“Feel better?” Jimmy asks, which might actually be a sincere question. Hard to tell with Jimmy.

Flip just glowers. 

Then, for no reason Ron can see, Flip reaches out without looking, rests one big hand on Ron’s shoulder. Leaves it there for what seems like a goddamn long time. Ron couldn’t say how long, exactly, just -- long.

Then he storms off, wordless.

Ron’s expecting Jimmy to follow -- is honestly waiting for Jimmy to follow, so he can follow Jimmy, because right now he doesn’t really know what else to do. 

Jimmy just shakes his head, turns to look at Ron. 

“You remember that kid?” he asks. “The one Landers shot. Remember that?”

“Yeah,” Ron says. He has no idea where this is going, what the connection’s supposed to be. At the moment, he’s too run down to care. “Yeah, I remember that.”

Jimmy finally starts walking, not the same way Flip went. The opposite direction. 

Ron doesn’t know Jimmy the way he knows Flip, is the thing. Ron also doesn’t know Flip the way Jimmy knows Flip. He doesn’t entirely know why he cares; why it feels important right now with all the other shit that’s been going on. Hell, he should be home in bed, with an icepack on his knee. He should be with Patrice. He should be in -- Tahiti. Tahiti sounds nice.

He follows Jimmy, one hand on the wall to keep the weight off his knee. Must’ve twisted it when those two uniformed assholes knocked him down. God, he hopes they get shitcanned. Maybe arrested for their trouble, although that one seems unlikely.

Slow as Ron’s moving, Jimmy moves even slower, visibly waiting for him. “And you remember that whole speech Flip gave you when he brought it up, about how we’re a family?”

It wasn’t a speech. It was half a sentence, at best. Jimmy delivered the other half. Jimmy -- 

“Holy fuck,” Ron says, realizing. Funny how insight feels a lot like having your bell rung. Maybe it’s only that way when you’ve already been hit in the head six or seven times. “That was _you_?”

Jimmy shrugs, slows down, stops. Leans back against the wall. Doesn’t quite turn his head enough to meet Ron’s eyes. “Moment Flip heard about it, he -- Well. Fucking flipped. He never liked Landers to begin with, and he knew the kid some. And he… I mean, you’ve seen it. A lot of the guys, they see a black kid, they’re already making assumptions. Same as what happened to you, with those shitheads.” He gestures, vaguely. “Flip wasn’t like that. It’s why I had to stop him.”

“But why?” To think of the shit they could’ve been spared. The things they wouldn’t have had to deal with. Not just him, not just Patrice, but -- “If it would’ve gotten Landers off the fucking streets, then --”

“Because it wouldn’t.” Jimmy comes closer to looking at him, but still doesn’t succeed. “Even if it hadn’t been Flip; if I’d gone. Neither of us was there. Neither of us saw anything. Best I would’ve gotten would’ve been ‘Well, we’ll keep an eye on it.’ Just to shut me up. And Landers gets to keep going on, business as usual.

“But if Flip had gone --” Jimmy’s mouth twists. He looks up at the stained ceiling tiles, across at the wall, down at the carpet. Back to the wall. “Yeah, Flip knew the kid. That and fifty cents might get him a cup of coffee. But he wasn’t there. He didn’t see shit. So he didn’t have anything on Landers. 

“But Landers might’ve had something on him.”

Ron’s stomach churns from something more than exhaustion, stress, and pain. Hell, he _knows_ Flip. Doing this job with him, the shit they’ve risked for it -- This is the last thing he needs to hear.

“Like what?” he asks, anyway, because he has to. Whatever it is, he needs to know, now, so he can start dealing with it.

Jimmy finally looks at him, a hard, level stare. “Nothing you need to worry about,” he says, stern. “Nothing you want to go asking about, either. If Flip tells you, then he tells you. If he doesn’t, that’s his call. But he’s not hurting people, if that’s what’s got you worked up. Like I said, Flip isn’t like that. He’s just… At the end of the day, a lot of people see bad things happen, and they turn a blind eye. But they also see people living their lives and not harming anyone, and they lose their goddamn minds about it. You know what I mean?”

So drugs, probably. Drugs or something like that. Nothing serious, but could be pot. A joint every now and then, something small. Hell, maybe even just the once, if he timed it wrong. Flip could be that type, Ron thinks. And so could Jimmy. And that -- that’s not bad. Ron can deal with something like that, just a joint. Chief probably couldn’t; a lot of people can’t. But Ron can. Assuming that’s the case. God, he hopes that’s the case. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

Jimmy nods, shoulders slumping a little. “So yeah,” he says. “I talked him out it. Gave him a whole bunch of bullshit -- we’re family, we protect each other, he protected you now you gotta protect him…” A heavy sigh. “I don’t know how much he bought it, but he’s still here, so.

“And now this. Now you.”

Now him? “What about me?” he asks.

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Jimmy says, that hangdog face of his looking even sadder than usual, “but you damn near died today. Those jackasses could’ve killed you. Even though you’re one of us. Even though you’re ‘family.’” He uses his fingers to put the quotes in himself. “Granted, Chief can’t brush this one under the table no matter how hard he tries. Those two idiots are handing in their badges with or without Flip getting himself involved. I just don’t know if that’s gonna be enough for him, after everything. This whole Klan business has him in a bad way. You don’t see it, because you don’t know him like I do, but it’s there. At some point, he’s got to get it out of his system. Do something with it. And it’s Flip, so whatever he does, it’s gonna be stupid.”

“And you want me to what, stop him?” It makes sense, in its way -- Ron recruited him, Ron’s been pushing him through, it’s Ron’s mess. But also Flip is an adult, and also, Ron is exhausted. This is the last thing he needs.

“Nah,” Jimmy says. “I think maybe we need to help him.”

On the other hand. Maybe Ron could do just one more thing.

 

*

 

It’s surprisingly easy to talk the Chief into letting them set up the sting, although maybe Ron shouldn’t be surprised -- like Flip said, he also managed to talk the Chief into letting them infiltrate the Klan, which should’ve gone over like a lead balloon. And that was _before_ he got his ass beat by two of Colorado Springs’ finest. Maybe the Chief really wants things to be more equal, maybe he doesn’t, but he’s committed himself to playing the part and he’s not backing down. Ron almost respects that.

Patrice is the hard sell. 

Ron kind of respects that, too.

“I just don't know if I'm comfortable --”

“What, getting a dirty cop off the streets?” 

Patrice fidgets with the necklace he gave her; it's some kind of a tell, but he hasn't figured out yet what it's telling. 

“The guy's killed someone, Patrice. He'll do it again. Look at what he tried to do to you. You really want that happening to another woman? I get you don't like working with the cops. I get why. But are you really going to wait for the revolution to take this guy down when we have an opportunity to do it ourselves, right now?”

“You're assuming anything's even going to happen to him,” Patrice argues. “What if it doesn't? Lots of pigs -- lots of _cops_ do lots of bad things, all the time, and nothing happens. What makes you think this is going to be different?”

He doesn't, not completely. He does, mostly. It's complicated. “Look, I'm not guaranteeing anything here. I wish I could, but I can't. But if there ever was a shot for this, it's right now. A year -- hell, a month from now, no one's gonna care about the Klan trying to blow you up. No one's gonna care about the two uniformed police officers who beat me to a pulp trying to stop it. Right now, though, people care. Might as well make it mean something.”

She still doesn't look convinced, but something's getting through. That's the thing with him and Patrice, the thing she doesn't quite see yet. They want the same things, in the end. They just can't agree on how to get them. “So what,” she says, and tugs on her necklace again. “We go out to the bar, he's there -- we invite him over? Like, how does that --”

“We don't approach.” Flip had been very insistent on that part. _For once in your life, hang the fuck back_. “We sit down, we have a beer, and if Landers doesn't come over, then he doesn't. We're not trying to trick him into doing anything he wouldn't do otherwise. We're just giving him a chance to be himself. With an audience.”

“And you think he will,” Patrice says, a little dubious still.

Ron takes a minute just to stare at her. “You think he won't?”

That, finally gets a half-hearted smile. “And these other… _Cops_.” It's obvious what she was about to say, but Ron appreciates the effort. “You trust them enough to stop him once he gets going?”

Ron doesn't even have to think about it. Maybe he should, but he doesn’t. “I trust these guys with my life.”

Patrice is back to frowning again, but even so, Ron can tell she's already in.

 

*

 

This is how Ron remembers his father's hands -- big, but careful. Bordering sometimes on tender.

Of course, his hands don't seem that big anymore, now that Ron's grown. Flip’s hands are still that big, and always will be. Reminds Ron of something he read in the Guinness Book, a while back, bored out of his mind in the Records Room. Acromegaly, he thinks.

Flip's not seven feet tall or anything, but the hands still match. 

They're not as steady as usual, as he carefully tapes the mic to Ron's undershirt. Not as sure.

“You wanna talk about it?” Ron asks.

Flip peers up at him. “Do I ever?” he asks, without cracking a smile. 

Then he sighs. “You remember when I was out shooting with those Klan jackasses, and they were talking about that bar? The Hide and Seek Room?”

Ron doesn't remember, exactly, but he's heard of the bar. The kind of guys that go there, what they’re like. What they do. “Yeah,” he says. He has no idea where the hell this is going, but there’s this crazy deja vu to it, like that conversation in the hall with Jimmy and --

Oh hell. Oh _hell_. 

“It was like my second or third time there.” Flip doesn’t look down, doesn’t break eye contact. His hand still on Ron’s chest like some kind of challenge. 

Ron doesn’t pull away. He could. Maybe he fucking should. Maybe --

Flip, though, seriously? Flip? 

“I mean it was stupid to start out with,” Flip says, and finally takes his hand away. Keeps his eyes on Ron’s, watching, waiting. _People lose their goddamn minds_. “But I hadn’t been in Colorado long, and I -- It was stupid. I know that. Believe me, Jimmy told me all about it. But there I was, having a beer, actually talking to someone for the first time in way too long, and in walks fucking Landers, full uniform, all -- puffed out.” He pulls his chin in, sticks his chest out, demonstrating. Still meeting Ron’s eyes, still not looking away. “He was partners with this guy MacMillan back then. Little weasely guy. Almost as bad as he was. So they come in, all big and bad, this two-man raid, and order everyone in the bar to stand up.”

The corner of Flip’s mouth quirks up, just a little bit. “Like I said, it was already stupid, but it’s not like a guy my size can really hide behind anyone else, so…

“So I stood up.” 

He’d done it to Ron, when Ron called him out for passing, which -- Hell. He didn’t even know the half of it, did he? _Passing_. And Flip had finally dropped the slouch, stood up tall, and he’s no seven-footer but he’s tall enough, that’s for sure. Barrel-chested, broad in the shoulders. 

Goddamn, that must’ve been a sight. 

Ron finally gets his voice back. “Landers wet his pants, did he?”

Flip’s laugh comes out in a punch of wind. “Damn near,” he says, the smile cracking a little wider, a little realer. It doesn’t last long. He drops his eyes, finally, pushes his hands through his hair. “I don’t know if MacMillan knew who the fuck I was, but Landers sure as shit did. Mumbled something about having a good evening, turned tail and ran. MacMillan right behind him. And me fucking shitting myself once it all caught up, but.” He shrugs. “Never heard anything about it. Hell, maybe he figured I was working a sting myself or something. No clue. But he kept his mouth shut, and I kept mine shut, and I figured that was the end of it.

“Then he shot that kid.” He looks up at Ron again, the way he did before, but this time he can’t hold it. Turns away again. Guilty. “I mean, I knew it was a bad shooting. Even before I knew who he’d done it to, I… You can just tell. With Landers. Like you said, you know? You can smell him. Then the name started going around, and I was positive. I’d worked cases in that neighborhood before; you get to know people. Kid was like you. Straight as the proverbial fucking arrow. Good grades, well-behaved… I mean, there was no way. No fucking way. I got the name and I don’t even remember standing up. I’m just there in the hallway outside the Chief’s office and Jimmy was right there with me. Little fucker’s fast when he wants to be. All this, ‘We’re a family,’ and ‘We protect each other’ and ‘He’s protecting you’ and --”

Flip sighs, shoulders rising and falling heavily. “It was fucking stupid. I know I keep saying that; well, it’s true. I fucked up. I put myself in a position that could cost me my job, and I got caught, and when it came back around, like it always does, I chickened out. Kid deserved justice. That’s what we do, right? Protect and serve. I protected myself. So now I’m here. Even though I probably shouldn’t be.”

It’s heavy, that’s for damn sure. It’s heavy as hell, and all Ron can think right now is maybe that why Flip slouches so much. All that on his back. 

He was thinking of his father, earlier. Ron knows what his father would say about all this. He knows what Patrice would say about it too, or at least some of it. 

But Ron’s his own man, not either of them, and he’s gonna play it his own way. 

“You _are_ here,” he says, and sets his hand on Flip’s shoulder, lets it rest there. “With me, trying to get that son of a bitch off the force and off the streets. You don’t have to be here, doing this, but you are. I mean, that’s what counts, right?”

“Is it?” Flip asks, quietly. He doesn’t sound as nonchalant as usual. 

“Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it,” Ron tells him. Honestly, he’s almost a little surprised himself, how much he means it. How, somewhere along the line, _Stallworth brothers_ became more than just a joke. He doesn’t know how to say that to Flip, though, not yet, so he settles for “Partner,” instead.

Flip rolls his eyes. Then he goes back to taping the mic cord to Ron’s chest like their little heart-to-heart never happened. “Anyway,” he says. “I’m mostly telling you this because once Landers gets busted, once it sinks in that he’s been busted, he’s gonna start flailing around for a way to save his own ass by throwing someone else under the bus. He picks me, that’s gonna be what he uses. ‘Cause it’s the only thing he has. Don’t know if it’ll get him anywhere, but. I also don’t want you hearing it from him. Or the Chief.”

Ron wonders if Flip would’ve cared about that before this whole partnership started. Not that it matters now. He knows when to use his pleases and his thank yous. “Thank you,” he says.

“Yeah, well.” Flip smooths the last piece of tape into place, pats Ron’s chest once before pulling back. “Thanks for not running away. Or something.”

Because people have. They’ve run. They’ve done worse. Apparently, Ron’s not that kind. He just didn’t know it before today. “Don’t sweat it,” he says. Pulls his shirt down, finally. “For the record, I’ve got your back. Whatever you need, just let me know.”

Flip nods. “Thanks,” he says, quiet again. Then he squares his shoulders, stands up. Looming, but just a little. “All right,” he says. “Ready to take the son of a bitch down? Oh, wait, you were born ready, weren’t you?”

“Damn right I was,” Ron says, and grins at him, and gets something like a fond smile in return. “Let’s do this.”

 

*

 

They get their moment, anyway. Landers gets hauled out of the bar kicking and shouting, and Jimmy and Flip pile into the booth with Ron and Patrice, laughing, grinning, toasting, and they get that. One good moment, all four of them.

And maybe that's all they get, but at least they get that.

 

*

 

“I hate to say it --”

“Then don't.” Even for Flip, it's terse. Angry, maybe. Scared, sad, a lot of things. “Don't say it. Easy as that.”

“It's never that easy.” Truth is, he’s been thinking about this since last night, lying awake. _For once in your life, hang the fuck back._ He never could -- that’s the trouble with him. Got him into problems when he was a kid. Still getting him in trouble now. He was always just a little too brave.

Maybe today’s the day he hangs back. 

“They threatened a _cop_ , Ron.” Flip starts pacing, arms folded across his chest. “ _You_ , in case you’ve forgotten. This isn’t small time shit. This is serious. These guys are serious, or did you forget the part where they already tried to murder your girlfriend? The whole C4 business? The weird top-secret Army guys? They know where she lives. They know where you live. What the fuck do you think --” He doesn’t finish it, pushes his hands through his hair, pushes out a short sharp breath. “What the fuck are you thinking? Jimmy, I know what he’s thinking, which isn’t much, but what are you thinking? Really. I’d love to fucking hear it.”

“I’m thinking I’m not fucking done yet, is what I’m thinking!” 

It catches Flip by surprise. Hell, it almost catches Ron by surprise. He’s good at holding it in, at not letting himself be that angry. Not letting it out, anyway. He doesn’t get to. Not even here. Not even now.

He takes a deep breath, composes himself, and says, “Look, you heard the chief. Straight up told us both. _Do not contact those people._ And I fucking did it anyway. If I hadn’t tried to get the last word in --”

“You don’t know that for sure.” Funny how everything in Flip softens when he says that. Shoulders, hands, eyes, everything. “Like I said, Felix had it all figured out. You, me, all of it. For all we know --”

But Ron was there, too. Ron was watching them, too. Felix didn’t talk to a lot of people. Whatever that weird morse code thing was with Duke, it wouldn’t have been enough to pass the message on, and anyway, he doubts Felix knew about Flip at the time. The conversation with the Italian guy, before they gave Connie the bomb. That was when he found out. Wasn’t time after to pass it on. Ron’s sure of it. “Everything Felix knew died with the men in that car,” he says. “Period. And even if it didn’t, that doesn’t help either of us any. If Chief knew we’d been compromised to that extent, we wouldn’t just be off this case. Hell, we’d be lucky to get kicked back to the Records room. Both of us. I don’t want that for you. And I sure as shit don’t want that for me. Not now. Not when I just got here.”

It rocks Flip back for a second, but only a second. “So what happens when the Chief hears about it anyway?” he asks. “You really think he’s gonna believe it’s just a coincidence there was a cross burning that close to your apartment, right after we just got done with this case? He’s gonna ask questions.”

That’s the other thing that’s been on Ron’s mind, even before the cross burning happened. The moment they got kicked off the case. Maybe sooner, even, than that. “You really think so?” he asks. “‘Cause honestly, I don’t think he’s gonna say anything at all. Not unless we do. And I’m not planning on it. There’s too much at stake for me right now. I’m sorry, Flip. But I can’t do this.”

The wind just slides out of Flip, slow; he deflates and it hurts to see but Ron can’t take it back. Not with this much at stake. “You know the worst thing?” he asks, sinking heavily down on a desk. “You know who you sound like? Me, that’s who. You sound like me.”

“That really such a bad thing?” Ron asks, meaning it, and the look Flip shoots him in exchange is scalding. 

“You don’t get it. You don’t get it, and I can’t explain it.” Flip shrugs, the fire in him already going out. “This is the first time you’ve ever made this kind of call. The fifteenth time? The fiftieth? You don’t even know what that’s gonna feel like. But you will, someday. You will.”

He won’t. At least that’s what he tells himself. At least it’s what he’d like to tell himself. Flip just sounds so sure. 

“I just need to know,” he says, even as he’s starting to hate himself for it. “Do you have my back, or don’t you?”

Another look, and yeah, Ron’s gonna hate himself for this. “Of course I have your back,” Flip says, wounded. “Don’t be an idiot. Of course I do. Jesus.”

Ron settles down on the desk next to Flip, shoulder to shoulder, like bookends. “Thought you were Jewish,” he says, for lack of anything better to say, but still needing to say something.

“Yeah, well, so was he.” Flip makes a huffing sound that probably isn’t a laugh. Ron musters a smile, even though he knows Flip isn’t looking. “I do wonder sometimes,” Flip adds, quieter. “What’s going to happen when the days it’s not worth it start to outnumber the days it is.”

Ron still doesn’t have anything to say. At least this time he knows to skip the bad jokes. He rests his hand on Flip’s shoulder instead, leaves it there longer than he ordinarily would. Flip’s not trying to get away, at least, so. Hopefully it’s helping.

Then he puts his hand back in his lap, and Flip stands up. “I was gonna ask you,” he says, voice a little clearer. “When I came in. I was talking to Eli last night -- Eli’s my…” He trails off, waiting, and it takes a second but then it clicks, and it must be visible because that’s when Flip picks back up. “Yeah, exactly. Anyway, now that all this shit is over, he was wondering if you wanted to come over and share the Sabbath with us, sometimes. It’s not a conversion, or anything, just. Usually you do it with more than two people in the room, and I think he’s getting a little sick of it. Just the two of us. You wouldn’t have to learn Hebrew, or anything. Just something to think about. If you ever want to.”

There’s a lot to think about in that -- he’s still getting his head around Flip being gay, let alone being gay with someone -- but mostly Ron is aware that he is being honored, in some strange way. He’s not sure he deserves it, not today. He also knows that he’d be a genuine asshole if he turned it down, and he’s trying not to go to that place. “No, absolutely,” he says. “That’s -- yeah. I’d love to.” 

“You could even bring Patrice,” Flip offers, although he doesn’t look totally comfortable with it. “If you didn’t think it’d scare her off, you know. Me and Eli.”

It’s Ron’s turn to fake a laugh, then. “That’s kind of you, but -- I don’t think Patrice is going anywhere with me for a while,” he says. “She made that pretty clear. Before the cross burning, but I doubt that helped. I think we’re about done.”

“That’s a shame.” He even looks like he means it. “Well, come over Friday, if you want. And if the Klan hasn’t blown you up by then.”

“You wouldn’t let them.”

“Wouldn’t I?” He’s smiling as he says it, that fond smile again. Ron realizes then that he doesn’t even want to think about what would happen if Flip left this job. If it stopped being worth it.

He has no idea how to stop that from happening, but maybe he’ll figure it out someday.

“All right.” Flip starts walking to the door. “You love this job so much, Rookie. Maybe you better get back to it sometime this month.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be out in a second,” he says, and after a second, adds, “Partner.”

Flip just shakes his head and leaves, but Ron would like to think he’s smiling as he does it. He guesses he can’t really say for sure.

_You don’t understand. And I can’t explain it to you._

But maybe he never will. Maybe he’ll find a way to make it worth it -- if not all the time, then pretty damn close. He just needs to get past this one thing. He just needs to keep this job.

And if Flip said that to himself once, too, well. That doesn’t mean anything. Hell, Flip’s still there. Even finally got his chance to bust Landers for good. It came back around.

This’ll come back around too. When it does, Ron’ll be ready.

Ron was born ready.

He squares his shoulders, stands up, and follows Flip out of the room.

**Author's Note:**

> One of the things I came away from this movie with (apart from outrage and grief) was the question of how much of ourselves we have to carve away to fit the roles we choose. I don't know if I do the concept justice, exactly, but it was interesting to explore it. Anyway, it's good to be back. Let's see if I can do the next one in something under a year.


End file.
